Friday, April 10, 7 – 10 pm

“Juvenal Ravelo belongs to a generation of Venezuelan artists who see research as a revolutionary source of art. Only a profound analysis of the meaning of this vital activity by man would be able to open new paths in modern art, and Juvenal is conscious of this. For some years, his kinetic investigations start with the fragmentation of light as a phenomenon of visualization, which may reveal to the spectator other perceptive possibilities. In a pre-planned structure, luminous glints create a chromatic occurrence that continuously escapes. A sort of ephemeral flash of color. A fragmented reflection of the surroundings. Ravelo is a luminary and a point of reference in contemporary Venezuelan art in virtue of the deliberate and disciplined development of his work.” Carlos Cruz-Diez., Catalog of the exhibition at Arte Contacto Gallery, Caracas-Paris, 1974.

“Ravelo’s mural at Avenida Libertador in Caracas is an extraordinary work of current kinetic art. It is an aesthetic proposition of chromatic symmetry executed in large spaces and a manifestation of optic vibrations created with ingenuity and wisdom by one of the most important artists of universal art.”Jesús R. Soto, Caracas, 2003.

“After seeing the short film by Luis Altamirano, Ravelo y el arte de la participación en la calle [Ravelo and participatory art on the streets], I feel that art has touched me deeply and today I am looking at a different approach, an art that vindicates the forgotten residents of corners far from the major cultural centers of the world. It brings them happiness, it’s another type of art.” Julio Cortázar, Paris, 1979.

“Juvenal Ravelo insists on fragmenting light through reflections that form small overlapping metallic bodies which result in an interesting sensation of visual unreality, making him one of the major artists involved in the new kinetic investigations of the 1960s to date.”Alfredo Boulton, Paris, 1981.

“Juvenal Ravelo has taken advantage of the new technologies that began to be incorporated into artistic production beginning in the 1950s, as well as those non-conventional formal components that opened up unprecedented possibilities in structuring works of art. Light, real and virtual movements, chromatic and magnetic fields, perception and sensation, psychological, physical and emotional participation by the spectator become topics of conversation at the time: optical and kinetic art is the visible answer to all these experiments that would nourish Ravelo’s theoretical and practical artistic propositions. The British physicist Isaac Newton’s theory of color on the composition of white light on rays of different colors would catch his attention. Thus, he passes from monochromes and reflective colors characteristic of his initial phase to carrying out a series characterized mostly by jubilant colors, highlighting the multiple retinal and optical expressions that are created on the surface of the work. In 2012, making a parenthesis in his trajectory, Ravelo declares to the journalist Falcón in the June 3, 2012 edition of the newspaper El Universal that: “When I started out with the investigation on the fragmentation of light and color, it caught my attention that Newton studied the phenomenon of the rainbow, that is, the decomposition of a ray of white light into seven colors. I was impressed! He did lab work to uncover why this phenomenon occurred in nature. So, I did research to carry out these works, using the gamut of colors that he chose and then incorporating them into my artistic proposal.” In this new 2000 phase, Ravelo introduces fragments of mirrors with greater regularity to invigorate even more his concept of color-light fragmentation, perhaps recalling the chromatic iridescence that is observed in nature when light impacts its components.(…)

Ravelo makes his own each component of recent art. He does not allow himself to be constrained by the askesis of the strict values of a particular tendency. In producing the new series “Fragmentación de la luz y el color” [“Fragmentation of Light and Color”], he gives free rein to the spirit and to the instinct-reason dialectic to elevate the monumentality of the metaphors of light and color he creates. Continuing his own investigations of a tendency that could be considered historical avant-garde always embodies a challenge for him. But his validity lies in the uncompromising determination to renew once and again values reinforced in the artistic discourse that characterizes him. ”Dr. Bélgica Rodríguez, January 2015.

About Durban Segnini Gallery

Cesar Segnini, director and owner, founded Durban Segnini Gallery in Caracas, Venezuela in 1970 and in Miami in 1992. The gallery specializes in contemporary painting and sculpture with particular emphasis in artists who have worked with abstract expressionism, abstraction, constructivism, geometric and kinetic art. Simultaneously, the Gallery strives to promote and diffuse new artistic values as well as the historical vanguards that have influenced them. Since 1992 exhibitions are open to the public all year round in the gallery in Miami, Florida. Worldwide, Durban Segnini Gallery is known for its expertise in such areas as the integration of artworks to architectural spaces as well as for its customized consultant services to private collections.